Rick Moranis

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(YouTube Streaming, August 2020) Considering how Little Shop of Horrors is a dark musical comedy featuring quite a bit of affection for a human-eating plant called Audrey, there are many, many ways the film could have gone wrong. Its first achievement is that it didn’t – the second is how good it ends up being. Deftly directed by Frank Oz, the film can at least depend on good performers – some veterans, some lesser-known, but all able to bring their best to their characters. This starts with Rick Moranis as the Nebbish at put-upon Seymour, continues with Ellen Greene’s squeaky-voiced performance as the adorable love interest, goes to a bad-boy supporting role for dark-haired 50s style Steve Martin, and finally to near-cameos by Bill Murray, John Candy and James Belushi. Then add in the bouncy do-wop musical numbers, the sweet romance, the crazy comedy of Martin’s subplot, the constant interruptions by the bloodthirsty talking plant and it all combines for a film that’s ridiculously hard to resist, even knowing it features a human-killing plant. The ending finds a way to culminate the craziness while still delivering a satisfying ending, but it was a close thing: Little Shop of Horror is famous for scrapping a very expensive large-scale original ending (following the off-Broadway play) in which Audrey kills the protagonists and goes on to conquer the world. It’s entertaining in a you-lost-the-game bad-ending kind of way, but it’s not the one most appropriate to the film, and hurrah to whatever studio interference that led to a revised climax. Get the physical version of the film that has both, and you’ll decide by yourself.

Little Giants (1994)

Little Giants (1994)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) As an underdog kids’ sports movie, Little Giant is exactly what you’d imagine as an example of the genre. The plot threads are familiar and obvious, the details are well observed and the film is often more interesting in its execution than its overall structure. Much of the film’s success comes from two well-matched actors: Ed O’Neill as a hometown football hero (echoing his more famous turn in Married with Children) facing down a kid brother played by Rick Moranis. The plot details are unimportant, leading us anyway to an absurdly important climactic football game won by the expected underdog. Some material involving Shawna Waldron playing a tomboyish teenage girl is more interesting than expected. Otherwise, it’s a comedy firmly in the mould of mid-1990s material. Some of it hasn’t dated well—considering what we now know about concussions, the idea of a kid’s movie about football seems more irresponsible than ineluctably American. (But do I repeat myself?) You also must swallow an unhealthy amount of skepticism retardant in order to believe in the amount of plot cheats required to make it from beginning to end. Still, as those movies go, Little Giants plays rather easily. One note to francophone viewers: The Québec dub of the film is particularly annoying, adopting a dialect that almost touches upon Québec joual before reverting to the mid-Atlantic correctness we expect from American film dubbing.

Honey, I Blew up the Kid (1992)

Honey, I Blew up the Kid (1992)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2019) You’ve seen an absent-minded scientist shrink the kids, now watch him blow up a toddler to the size of a skyscraper in Honey, I Blew up the Kid. Yes, Rick Moranis returns as an endearingly clueless inventor, this time turning the size dial the other way in enlarging his two-year-old son. It’s a Science Fiction comedy, so there’s no need to be concerned. The spectacle is quite ambitious for an early-1990s film—including having a gigantic kid run amok through downtown Las Vegas. The special effects are definitely limited by the technology of the time, but there are plenty of them, and some actually work really well. Moranis is equal to himself, with some fine supporting work from other actors—including a teenage Keri Russell doing her big-screen debut here. On a plotting level, I was pleasantly surprised to see that, after an opening that portends strife between the teenager heroes and their parents, the script chooses to have the teenagers remain likable, be resourceful and work in collaboration with their parents to resolve the film’s conflict. This, plus the rather charming visual impact of seeing a two-year-old rampage through the Nevada scenery, does all lead to a very cute ending. Honey, I Blew up the Kid is not quite as attention-grabbing as its predecessor and doesn’t have as many ideas to go around, but it’s a solid high-concept executed in competent fashion.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, March 2018) Frankly, I expected to like Honey I Shrunk the Kids a lot more than I did. But there is something right now in being a parent that stops me from liking kids-in-danger movies, and it don’t get worse than the idea of children being reduced to ant size and then losing themselves in their backyard. The sheer terror of being the dad who realizes what has happened, and what mortal danger he himself may pose to his kids, is only one of the reasons why I expect this film to be far more accessible to kids than their parents. It’s meant as a comedy, but I didn’t laugh a lot—it doesn’t help that as a special-effects-heavy film, Honey I Shrunk the Kids has aged poorly in an era of omnipresent special effects. Much of the FX shot are hopelessly dated, and it’s hard to ignore them when the entire film is built on a parade of such sequences. (They have also aged more poorly than SF&F spectacles of the same time given that they’re meant to portray the familiar in an extraordinary way—but we know what the ordinary looks like and every imperfection counts.)  Rick Moranis is perfectly cast as the absent-minded dad, but even his borderline charm (as in; easy to grate) can’t do much against a script that is based on heavy authorial intervention rather than organic plot development. Everything feels manipulated to give us a ride rather than make us believe in a story. Coupled to the child-endangerment block mentioned above, it means that sitting through the film is tougher than expected. Oh, it still does work here and there. The Bee sequence makes no sense (a bee that stays in a single backyard?) but looks better and reels more dynamic than other sequences. There’s a Lego brick segment that I had completely forgotten from watching the film as a kid. And there’s some mildly entertaining bickering between the kids. Still, I’m curiously put off by Honey I Shrunk the Kids—and I’ll be the first to admit that this is an idiosyncratic reaction that may not be shared.